Paradox
by Kimagure
Summary: A really confusing Sirius character sketch, written pre-OotP, but that still probably makes sense within an OotP context.


I don't own Harry Potter or assorted characters. And trust me, this doesn't make much sense even when you do know what it's about. I wrote it with Sirius in mind and most of the references were intended to be towards Remus. If you see something else, well kudos to you. I'm certainly not going to argue. ^-^ 

***

I promised myself…  
  
I really did this time. I promised myself that I wouldn't let this overwhelm me. Because both you and I know that I'm stronger than this, I've lived through worse than this. I've made it. I've survived.   
  
The rest is all downhill, right?   
  
You promised me. Every night when you were there beside me, you promised me. Telling me that it was over. That I wasn't going back. That it was all in the past, nothing but a bad memory now.   
  
And…and I wanted to believe you. I really did. The promises sounded so sweet falling from your lips. I wanted to be able to wipe the concern away from your tired eyes. I wanted to accept the warm hug you tried to give me and return it with one of my own.   
  
But your promises are just words. And they can't reach where I've gone anymore.   
  
It's not over. And it never will be. I've messed up everything, making a fantastical farce of everyone's lives so far. If it weren't so tragic, I'd call it a comedy of errors. Complete with macabre humor, though…It's not over. It never will be because there's an otherness to me now too.   
  
And I don't know what to do or what to expect.   
  
I waited for the feelings to fade away into bad memories like you promised. You said I'd never go back. But, bless your heart, you can't know that I go back every night. There's something broken inside me, and I can feel it growing everyday. It swallows me, slowly. Gobbling up what's left of me, bit by bit. I wait for it to finish me off, like the snake that's eaten its own tail. I can feel it devouring my soul.   
  
The past, the present, the future. They've all blended together creating a tapestry for my grisly dreams. I close my eyes, only to close out one reality and open another. I see myself so clearly, as if I were standing in front of a mirror to the whole world. But when I open my eyes, the image is distorted.   
  
In my dreams I can see the dead in me. The empty eye sockets staring blankly out as those with no soul to share are wont to do. There are no windows. Only mirrors in every direction which reflect back the nothingness of the being before them.   
  
The nothingness that is me.   
  
You assured me that it was all over now. Your voice a calming counterpoint to the incessant ringing I hear constantly in my ears. But even you, with your heart of gold, can't bleed the screaming away. It's trapped there like the ocean in a seashell. The only time you hear it is when I let you close enough. You can't know that it never ends. That it never will.   
  
In my dreams, I hold my world in the sweaty palms of my hands. I can feel it shift unstably. What was once bedrock and clay, I can feel sliding into sand. The power to hold this tiny world together lies entirely within me, but the sand still slips innocently through my fingers, leaving me each day with less. But it's just a perception. Like the clock on the mantle…if I don't exist, does it?   
  
Broken. Broken. Broken. Broken things can be fixed.   
  
But I can't be. I close my eyes and I can see the Death in me. I can see the part of me that's dying and the part of me that kills so that others can die. Coolly, I can place my hands against the slick surface of that mirror and see something so polarized in the reflections that it makes no sense.   
  
You told me once that I needed to think things out slowly first. To make sense of them before rashly rushing in. You said it as if it should have been so easy. But I search this line continually, wondering when I'll stumble across the end to this circle. I hold this crumbling world in my hands, staring at the bits and pieces, trying to decipher a meaning behind what I'm seeing. But I don't remember how it began, and I don't understand how it will end.   
  
You promised that we'd survive this somehow.   
  
But I have to tell you, that it wasn't up to you to promise that. And as for me?   
  
I promised myself a paradox.


End file.
